Brothers no more: Informant shatters notion of gang loyalty

Jason van Rassel, Calgary Herald07.27.2013

Calgary police have taken huge steps toward closing the books on a number of unsolved homicides with the testimony of former gangster Michael Roberto and at least one other informant, but say there is still much work to do.Calgary Herald/Files

Michael Roberto has agreed to testify against his former FOB gang comrades in exchange for not being charged with murder.Herald files
/ CALGARY POLICE

Insp. Cliff O’Brien of the Calgary Police Service says the testimony of former gangster Michael Roberto should send a message to those still involved in crime. “You not only have to worry about police knocking on your door, you have to worry about the person who’s sitting next to you,” he said.Calgary Herald/Files
/ Calgary Herald

The twisted notion of brotherhood that held the FOB gang together and motivated its crimes is in tatters today, with longtime member Michael Roberto’s decision to testify against his former comrades.

Many of FOB’s senior members have already been killed in a gang war that has claimed at least 25 lives in the Calgary area; most of those who remain are now in the sights of prosecutors, thanks to the evidence Roberto has agreed to provide.

Roberto’s evidence against FOB principals including Nathan Zuccherato and brothers Nicholas and Timothy Chan has yet to be tested in court — but he’s also not the only one who has turned his back on the gang and agreed to testify for prosecutors.

Time, which can so often be the enemy in police investigations, has been their ally in this case.

“I hope this is a message that if you’re involved in organized crime or committed a murder, you not only have to worry about police knocking on your door, you have to worry about the person who’s sitting next to you,” said Insp. Cliff O’Brien of the major crime section.

“You just never know who your friends are, and relationships change, friendships change.”

In the beginning, FOB was a tight-knit group of mainly Asian teens who attended school together. They called themselves “Fresh Off the Boat,” reclaiming a derisive term for newcomers as a source of pride.

FOB started out as dial-a-dopers, using cellphones and pagers to arrange and deliver small amounts of drugs to customers.

The gang branched out to include non-Asians and teens from other parts of the city, but the growth brought conflict.

A group split from FOB at some point and soon became known as FK, short for FOB Killers.

Fist fights escalated to stabbings, then shootings, setting in motion a cycle of revenge attacks that resulted in 25 related homicides between 2002 and 2009.

Over time, FOB ceased to mean Fresh Off the Boat and became “Forever Our Brothers,” a tribute to slain gang members also designed to project solidarity to outsiders.

Gangs have long used the language of loyalty and brotherhood as a way of intimidating rivals and keeping their own members in line.

But more often than not, it’s lip service: the underworld is littered with the bodies of outlaw bikers and mafiosi killed by their “brothers” based on a mere suspicion of betraying the group.

And, like Roberto, some do — often when faced with lengthy prison sentences.

Calgary police acknowledge Roberto isn’t their only informant, though investigators won’t go any further than that for safety reasons.

FOB associates who spoke to the Herald have their suspicions about another informant whose identity hasn’t been made public. (For the same reasons as police, the Herald isn’t identifying the individual.)

In Roberto’s case, admitting his crimes and implicating other FOB members in several homicides won him partial immunity, earning him a 16-year sentence instead of a possible life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.

Credit for time served leaves Roberto, 29, with less than eight years in his sentence and eligible for parole in less than three years.

It may seem a Faustian bargain but, to authorities, evidence from Roberto presents them with the opportunity to crack several unsolved homicides.

It has also allowed them to delve deeper into FOB’s workings and snare a wider range of suspects: in addition to charging gang members who allegedly pulled the trigger in some of the killings, police have also laid conspiracy and organized crime-related charges against others thought to have helped plan and execute the crimes.

“Generally, the person to best describe the inside of a criminal organization is a person inside the criminal organization,” O’Brien said.

Operation Desino, the investigation prompted by Roberto’s defection, led to charges against five men in connection with six homicides dating back to 2008.

For years, gang members had suspicions about which rivals were responsible for killing their friends and chose to settle the scores themselves instead of involving police.

Investigators often harboured the same suspicions as the gangsters, but word on the street falls far short of evidence that’s admissible in court.

The emergence of Roberto as a Crown witness — and at least one other FOB member co-operating with police — means investigators may yet close the books on more unsolved killings connected to the gang war.

“We’re going to continue our work of finding those gang members and the crimes they committed,” O’Brien said.

And though the Desino investigation and resulting charges have altered Calgary’s criminal underworld, FOB and FK continue to exist and do business in the drug trade.

As long as they’re around, the potential for violence remains and police have more work to do, said O’Brien.

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